What is the best recent movie you’ve seen.

[Meta not Meta]

No need for anyone to restrict themselves to Hollywood. There's literally an entire world of movies to see. Especially if you live in a movie-mad city like Montreal, where I'm basically located within (brisk) walking distance of all the independent cinemas.

I'm second to no one in my love of its old Westerns, screwball comedies, MGM musicals, film noir, Hitchcock, Hawks, Ford, Welles et al, and the brief rennaisance that was Hollywood in the late '60s/early '70s.

But Hollywood's been running on fumes for decades now. Blame it on Spielberg (though undeniably a great filmmaker), Lucas and the rise and continued presence of the blockbuster, which left little room for more modestly-budgeted, intelligent adult-oriented films. Yes, there are exceptions ... like The Brutalist.

Some recent [non-Hollywood] films I quite like:

Universal Language: Canadian and incredibly quirky, satirical & melancholic, sometimes very moving, and basically how we might look to outsiders from a very different culture. Replete with in-jokes. What Aki Kaurismäki might do if he was born in Winnipeg.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig: a very different, intense, allegorical suspense drama about an upwardly-mobile family in Tehran collapsing under the weight of its own paranoia & patriarchal repression.

Vermiglio: a stunningly-shot bit of social realism, an ensemble drama set in a remote mountain village in northern Italy near the end of WW2. Really brings an entire world alive, thanks to the production design, cast, and clear attention to detail. Surprised me as I really didn't want this one to end ... rarely has a film communicated so much just in the way some of its characters look at each other. Also much to do with feelings of betrayal ...

 

[Johnny test]

Blockbusters are far from being the best movies each year but they feed the ecosystem, so no successful blockbusters could have an impact on the rest of the production.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Anora (2024)
Comedy starring Mikie Madison about a stripper/escort who meets a young Russian boy at a stripclub, visits him at his million dollar mansion (which belongs to his wealthy parents) and ends up marrying him which causes his parents & everyone else around them losing their shit & attempt them get their marriage annulled. I didn’t know what to expect when i watched this movie & ended up absolutely loving it! It’s funny as hell! Plus i enjoyed the fact it kind i realized that i had met dozens of Amiras over my life. Mikey Madison was fantastic in her role & she had an Oscar-worthy performance! Very entertaining movie & tons of nudity & sex scenes! Loved it & i’ll watch it again!

 

[UncleBob]

Companion (2025)

Excellent little movie... And it's about fuckbots lol.

 

[Meta not Meta]

Anora (2024)
Comedy starring Mikie Madison about a stripper/escort who meets a young Russian boy at a stripclub, visits him at his million dollar mansion (which belongs to his wealthy parents) and ends up marrying him which causes his parents & everyone else around them losing their shit & attempt them get their marriage annulled. I didn’t know what to expect when i watched this movie & ended up absolutely loving it! It’s funny as hell! Plus i enjoyed the fact it kind i realized that i had met dozens of Amiras over my life. Mikey Madison was fantastic in her role & she had an Oscar-worthy performance! Very entertaining movie & tons of nudity & sex scenes! Loved it & i’ll watch it again!

You might want to check out Sean Baker, the writer/director's other movies. Guaranteed. And, believe it or not, they're mostly all about pornstars & sex workers of one kind or another.

Frequently hilarious (especially Tangerine, shot on an IPhone in 2015), all are gritty, very human, very contemporary, believable and very-much working the non-glamour side of things. But probably my favourite is Red Rocket, about an aging male porn star very much down on his luck, at least until he becomes smitten with a much younger woman.

You know the Russian character, Igor, that Anora ends up with at the end of that film? The actor's pretty famous in Russia, Yura Borisov. He's also in one of my favorite films of recent years, a Finnish movie called Compartment No. 6.

 

[Doc Holliday]

You might want to check out Sean Baker, the writer/director's other movies. Guaranteed. And, believe it or not, they're mostly all about pornstars & sex workers of one kind or another.

Frequently hilarious (especially Tangerine, shot on an IPhone in 2015), all are gritty, very human, very contemporary, believable and very-much working the non-glamour side of things. But probably my favourite is Red Rocket, about an aging male porn star very much down on his luck, at least until he becomes smitten with a much younger woman.

You know the Russian character, Igor, that Anora ends up with at the end of that film? The actor's pretty famous in Russia, Yura Borisov. He's also in one of my favorite films of recent years, a Finnish movie called Compartment No. 6.

Good to know. I know i saw the actor playing Igor somewhere but not sure which movie or show i saw him in.

 

[observer29]

The problem i have with Apple+ is its lack of content compared to the other streaming services. Especially for the price it charges. I’m not a big fan of the quality of the shows & movies it creates either. However i absolutely loved The Morning Show. I also loved Constellation & Silo. Severance was also very well made & different. I also loved Servant & the remake of Presumed Innocent. I loved Hijack mostly because i’m a huge fan of Idris Elba. What annoys me about Apple + is that shows are only released once a week instead of including all the episodes at once when a series is released. That’s why i only subscribe to their streaming service every three months or so since i’d rather binge than wait every week for an episode to drop. Look there is some very good stuff on that platform, don’t get me wrong. But for the price they charge there are mich better options elsewhere.

I actually find apple tv to have on average, the highest quality shows/movies. Its them and HBO, and everybody else is so far behind.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Baby girl (2024)
Erotic thriller starring Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson & Antonio Banderas. I really don’t know what to make of this movie. It somewhat reminded me of 9 1/2 weeks. The best way i can describe this movie is that it’s about a middle-aged woman (Kidman) who has never been sexually satisfied by her husband (Banderas) so she ends up having a kinky sexual relationship with a young intern at her workplace who knows exactly which of her buttons to press in order to conquer her sexually & practically own her although she’s trying her best (and mostly fails) to resist to the temptations as her private life slowly starts unraveling. It’s directed by Dutch actress, writer & director Halina Reijn but if i didn’t know better i would have thought Adrian Lyne had directed this movie. There is lots of nudity involving the Kidman character & lots of kinky sex scenes. This movie received a lot of praise worldwide & made quite a bit of money at the box office. To be honest i’m not exactly sure why. I’d loke to add that although it’s dubbed as an erotic thriller i got the erotic part but i must have missed the thriller part. Personally i was disappointed & expected more from a movie starring Nicole Kidman, one of the few actresses i actually enjoy watching in movies or miniseries. But considering the positive reviews it received maybe it’s just me. I gave it 6/10 stars.

 

[Meta not Meta]

Becoming Led Zeppelin (2025)

A fairly conventional 'authorized' rock-doc (with lots of archival footage and talking-head shots of Plant, Page & Jones), which covers the years up to 1970 (ie. the first two albums). It focuses entirely on the music, many influences, pre-band careers and early band dynamics rather than any sex, drugs and notoriety of stardom that would mostly come later. Not that these guys were ever going to touch on that. Nor anything about the infamous copyright infringement lawsuits of even later years. And just a little about their infamously frightful, protective, but thug-like manager, whom Page, somewhat at a celebratory loss, compares to a 'mafia don.' Otherwise, everything is relentlessly upbeat.

I'm not sure I needed to see this in a theatre, with what turned out to be a smallish audience of other boomers, but why not - it's a mostly very enjoyable film, even a fascinating one at times. Growing up on Punk I was, in theory, ideologically predisposed to despising them back in the late '70s, a time when Cream magazine ran features like 'Led Zep vs. The Clash.' But still, I always found that the records of both bands coexisted quite easily in my teenage collection. And I still listen to Zeppelin all these decades later.

As much as I knew all the music it surprised me just how little I knew from a biographical viewpoint. If you didn't know beforehand it becomes pretty clear that Zeppelin was Page's baby from the get go. l mean, he laboriously planned-out everything. Page knew exactly what he was doing and how to accomplish it, creating a sound like no other. Something heavy & timeless, a kind of cosmic sludge, which still managed to incorporate the entire history of rock, blues & R&B up to that point.

Both he and Jones had already well established careers in their late teens, in the mid-'60s, as London session musicians and arrangers, both performing on some pretty famous records together (like 'Goldfinger') and separately, for the likes of The Who, The Kinks and Lulu. There's a great moment in the film when Page pulls out a tiny, dogeared notebook that seemingly has a notation for every single paying gig he ever did pre-Zeppelin.

But I thought there'd be more about his time in The Yardbirds, though he recounts lovingly the story of the guitar given to him by Jeff Beck, while solemnly, if not a little ridiculously, comparing it to 'the sword of Excalibur.' I mean, these guys, especially Page, really took themselves seriously. And maybe as a consequence, when success arrived it came very quickly. Even before they had a record deal with Atlantic the first album had already been recorded, a condition of signing being that the band would always have complete creative control. And by the end of the decade they were already selling more records than the Beatles.

 

[Doc Holliday]

September 5 (2024)
I watched this movie last night & extremely enjoyed it! I was surprised at how much i liked it! I haven’t yet checked which movies are up for the Oscars this year but this is a movie i’d seriously consider. It revolves around what happened behind the scenes at the ABC Sports studios in West Germany during the Munich Olympics in 1972 while the Israeli/PLO hostage crisis was going on & how ABC took the lead in covering it. The always excellent Peter Sarsgaard stars as ABC Sports president Roone Arledge. The movie received very high praises from critics & movie goers alike. This is a very good movie about a dark chapter in Olympics Games history. I highly recommend!

 

[Meta not Meta]

September 5 (2024)
I watched this movie last night & extremely enjoyed it! I was surprised at how much i liked it! I haven’t yet checked which movies are up for the Oscars this year but this is a movie i’d seriously consider. It revolves around what happened behind the scenes at the ABC Sports studios in West Germany during the Munich Olympics in 1972 while the Israeli/PLO hostage crisis was going on & how ABC took the lead in covering it. The always excellent Peter Sarsgaard stars as ABC Sports president Roone Arledge. The movie received very high praises from critics & movie goers alike. This is a very good movie about a dark chapter in Olympics Games history. I highly recommend!

I haven't seen the movie yet, but as a child I remember quite clearly watching the original ABC news coverage, in real time, with Jim McKay. His famous statement, "They're all gone ..." remains chillingly unforgettable.

 

[Doc Holliday]

The Brutalist (2024)
Epic movie starring Adrien Brody in the role of a Jewish-Hungarian holocaust survivor named Lazslo Toth who immigrates to the United States once he’s liberated from the death camps. Once in America where he meets up with a cousin he learns that his wife & a niece had survived the holocaust but were currently unable to join him. He resumes his profession as an architect after meeting millionaire Harrison Van Buren played by Guy Pearce. Later his wife (played by Felicity Jones) & niece come to America to join him. I really enjoyed this movie even though it’s over 3:20 hrs long. I watched it in two sessions & to my surprise it didn’t seem that long. I really enjoyed this movie & it has to be a strong Oscar contender. Very strong Oscar-worthy performances by Brody, Pearce & Jones.

 

[Johnny test]

September 5 (2024)
I watched this movie last night & extremely enjoyed it! I was surprised at how much i liked it! I haven’t yet checked which movies are up for the Oscars this year but this is a movie i’d seriously consider. It revolves around what happened behind the scenes at the ABC Sports studios in West Germany during the Munich Olympics in 1972 while the Israeli/PLO hostage crisis was going on & how ABC took the lead in covering it. The always excellent Peter Sarsgaard stars as ABC Sports president Roone Arledge. The movie received very high praises from critics & movie goers alike. This is a very good movie about a dark chapter in Olympics Games history. I highly recommend!

Watched it yesterday and it's an interesting take on a well-known topic.
This angle is interesting not only in terms of storytelling and as an historical piece but also because they tackled the whole "should we broadcast this" which is an interesting question in this day and age. I would also recommend it

 

[Johnny test]

Becoming Led Zeppelin (2025)

A fairly conventional 'authorized' rock-doc (with lots of archival footage and talking-head shots of Plant, Page & Jones), which covers the years up to 1970 (ie. the first two albums). It focuses entirely on the music, many influences, pre-band careers and early band dynamics rather than any sex, drugs and notoriety of stardom that would mostly come later. Not that these guys were ever going to touch on that. Nor anything about the infamous copyright infringement lawsuits of even later years. And just a little about their infamously frightful, protective, but thug-like manager, whom Page, somewhat at a celebratory loss, compares to a 'mafia don.' Otherwise, everything is relentlessly upbeat.

I'm not sure I needed to see this in a theatre, with what turned out to be a smallish audience of other boomers, but why not - it's a mostly very enjoyable film, even a fascinating one at times. Growing up on Punk I was, in theory, ideologically predisposed to despising them back in the late '70s, a time when Cream magazine ran features like 'Led Zep vs. The Clash.' But still, I always found that the records of both bands coexisted quite easily in my teenage collection. And I still listen to Zeppelin all these decades later.

As much as I knew all the music it surprised me just how little I knew from a biographical viewpoint. If you didn't know beforehand it becomes pretty clear that Zeppelin was Page's baby from the get go. l mean, he laboriously planned-out everything. Page knew exactly what he was doing and how to accomplish it, creating a sound like no other. Something heavy & timeless, a kind of cosmic sludge, which still managed to incorporate the entire history of rock, blues & R&B up to that point.

Both he and Jones had already well established careers in their late teens, in the mid-'60s, as London session musicians and arrangers, both performing on some pretty famous records together (like 'Goldfinger') and separately, for the likes of The Who, The Kinks and Lulu. There's a great moment in the film when Page pulls out a tiny, dogeared notebook that seemingly has a notation for every single paying gig he ever did pre-Zeppelin.

But I thought there'd be more about his time in The Yardbirds, though he recounts lovingly the story of the guitar given to him by Jeff Beck, while solemnly, if not a little ridiculously, comparing it to 'the sword of Excalibur.' I mean, these guys, especially Page, really took themselves seriously. And maybe as a consequence, when success arrived it came very quickly. Even before they had a record deal with Atlantic the first album had already been recorded, a condition of signing being that the band would always have complete creative control. And by the end of the decade they were already selling more records than the Beatles.

Thanks for the review, by watching the preview, it's more or less what i was expecting. I'll probably watch it at some point but i'm not expecting much at this point

 

[Allnitelong]

Anora (2024)
Comedy starring Mikie Madison about a stripper/escort who meets a young Russian boy at a stripclub, visits him at his million dollar mansion (which belongs to his wealthy parents) and ends up marrying him which causes his parents & everyone else around them losing their shit & attempt them get their marriage annulled. I didn’t know what to expect when i watched this movie & ended up absolutely loving it! It’s funny as hell! Plus i enjoyed the fact it kind i realized that i had met dozens of Amiras over my life. Mikey Madison was fantastic in her role & she had an Oscar-worthy performance! Very entertaining movie & tons of nudity & sex scenes! Loved it & i’ll watch it again!

I watched it last week yes entertaining and funny!

 

[maymay]

Companion (Sophie Thatcher) heu WOW this one cough me by surprise, also The Gorge was really good.

 

[charmer_]

The Brutalist (2024)
Epic movie starring Adrien Brody in the role of a Jewish-Hungarian holocaust survivor named Lazslo Toth who immigrates to the United States once he’s liberated from the death camps
[...]
I really enjoyed this movie & it has to be a strong Oscar contender. Very strong Oscar-worthy performances by Brody, Pearce & Jones.

I saw this one in theatres. The length didn't bother me at all (it goes by fast).

(Slight SPOILERS)
The first half is excellent. But the second half there's a huge WTF moment (I'm sure you know what it is) that comes out of nowhere, which made the 2nd half not quite as good (for me).

But it's still a really good movie. Adrien Brody and Guy Pierce are amazing in it.

 

[Doc Holliday]

I saw this one in theatres. The length didn't bother me at all (it goes by fast).

(Slight SPOILERS)
The first half is excellent. But the second half there's a huge WTF moment (I'm sure you know what it is) that comes out of nowhere, which made the 2nd half not quite as good (for me).

But it's still a really good movie. Adrien Brody and Guy Pierce are amazing in it.

I know exactly which WTF moment you’re referring to. I also think there’s a WTFH moment near the end of the movie (i’m sure you know what I’m referring to) which still makes me wonder why it’s even there.

 

[Meta not Meta]

'Anora' Writer/Director Sean Baker thanks the SW community in his Oscar acceptance speech for Best Original Screenplay.

"They have shared their stories, they have shared their life experiences with me over the years. My deepest respect, thank you. I share this with you," he said.

 

[Johnny test]

A Complete Unknown

Watched this a few days ago and i really enjoyed it.
It's a biopic, very classic in its structure (chronological narration), so don't expect too much originality, at least in its form.
Of course, it relies a lot on the story and actors's performance.
The story is well known, it starts at the beginning of Dylan's career, with him meeting Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and ends when he chose to use electric instruments on stage, around the release of the "Highway 61 Revisited" album.
The performances, especially Chalamet's are top notch, apparently him and other actors also performed the songs which is also quite impressive especially in the case of Monica Barbaro who plays Joan Baez.
As classic as the movie may be it provides a lot of emotions and that's what movies are supposed to do i guess, so if you're interested in Dylan's life and this kind of music, i recommend it, it won't change your life but you'll probably leave the theater with a smile.
For those who didn't know Pete Seeger's work, but love classic rock, i would recommend Bruce Springsteen's "We shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" (2006), and the live performance of the same songs (In Ireland obviously ) the next year in "Live In Dublin"